for the human-interest aspect.”
You were momentarily revolted by the apparent Fifth House tradition. “You and your cavalier were—wedded?”
He did not turn a hair at wedded, or, as Ianthe would, say back exactly what you had in a high-pitched voice, for which you would one day jerk her white and beating heart from her colourless ribcage and eat it dripping before her. You did not examine eat it dripping as you maybe should have done. He just laughed in the uproarious, slap-your-thigh way that the Saint of Patience always laughed. It was not a laugh that really ever seemed to find anything genuinely funny. When this peal of performative humour had died down, Augustine said, “Bless you, sis! He was my brother.”
Killed own sibling.
Augustine the First was the closest thing you had ever experienced to human plex. On the outside, he was perfectly painted, in a sort of antique Fifth House style: all manners and politesse and over-easy familiarity. Yet there was nothing inside him but an equally easy contempt. It was as though ten thousand years had built up a shell and left a space at the centre. Nothing seemed to touch Augustine. He was effervescent and charming in a way you found a little tedious and flip, especially on those teeth-grinding occasions when God called you all to eat a social meal together. But there was never any real emotion, or reaction, or opinion—his mouth said one thing, and his face could contort itself into any number of silly expressions, but those eyes were devoid of substance. Cinereous was at least correct: ash also looked solid upon first glance, but was insubstantial filth on contact.
Poor relationship with Mercymorn.
You had written this understatement of the myriad when you thought that highly strung Mercy was easily out of patience with the sillier and more frivolous Augustine, in those first few weeks. He cultivated a specific expression whenever Mercymorn was talking: an expression that was meant to say to all assembled, At least we suffer together, and that more than once you had seen Ianthe smother a laugh at, so comical was the mouth. But that was the painted-on expression. The plex had been shaped differently. Though you often saw them pass in the hallway as if the other did not exist, you once spied a different encounter while safely ensconced in an alcove. They’d stopped in front of each other, with Mercy trying to pass left—Augustine made himself intangibly too much left to pass—Mercy trying to pass right—Augustine made himself intangibly too much right to pass—and Mercy saying, tightly: “Get out of my way, you miserable ass.”
Augustine had said something you did not catch, but then something you did: “—back to the bad old tricks of decades past.”
“Oh, as if you’re my keeper, you chattering imbecile!”
“But does John know, my child?” said the Saint of Patience, smiling.
Mercy had bristled, the nacreous whites of her robe visibly shivering. “That,” she said, “is a foul implication.”
“I’m not implying anything. Does John—”
“—and it’s obscene the way you call him that when—”
“Mercymorn!” said Augustine lightly. “I won’t fall for any of your worn-out tricks, my girl. Now, look: do I have to kill you before you get us both in trouble, or not?”
From your vantage point, you could see that the Saint of Joy’s face was a stiff white oval. Those hurricane eyes roiled within a face that was trembling and fixed. You could not see Augustine’s.
She said, “Don’t threaten me.”
“Or what? You’ll tell Daddy?” His tone of voice hadn’t changed. “Good grief … You wouldn’t get close enough to touch me, Mercymorn. No, I am not afraid of you. You are not very nice, but you are also not very clever, when it comes down to it. I’m going to give you three recommendations. One is to be in my airspace less. Two is to stop messing around with Cyth’s body. Three is to stop playing the rather dangerous game you’re playing—the one you said you’d stop.”
“I won’t do a thing you say.” She sounded tearful now.
“Don’t pull that face. I know you like I know my own soul … you’re thinking, If I move now, can I touch his neck before he can stop me? And heigh ho, there goes my trachea! It wouldn’t matter even if you were quick enough on the draw, you know.”
“As though you could ever—”
“If you killed me, I don’t think he’d forgive you, you see,” said Augustine. The easy, confidential tone of voice had gone. It was